Documents in possession of Leaks NG indicates that the cases include; over invoicing, subversion of board approvals, infraction of procurement laws among others.
Marilyn Amobi, the Managing Director of the Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading PLC (NBET) is currently embroiled in several cases of corruption allegations in the agency.
NBET, the manager and administrator of the electricity pool in the Nigerian electricity supply industry was incorporated in 2010 with the board inaugurated in 2011 and headed by the minister of finance.
Upon inauguration, the company recruited its management and non-management staff in 2012 and the first MD, Rumundaka Wonodi, was appointed same year.
With expiration of his tenure and a three months interim period, Mrs Amobi came on board in July 2016 as the substantive MD of the company.
However, her reign has since been characterised by several corruption allegations.
Documents in possession of Leaks NG indicates that the cases include; over invoicing, subversion of board approvals, infraction of procurement laws among others.
It started in 2016.
PAYMENT TO GENCOs WITHOUT ACTIVE PPA
According to documents in possession of Leaks NG, NBET for a long period has been over paying two generating companies; Omotosho Electric Genco and Olorunsogo Electric Company.
Omotosho Genco signed a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) activation agreement with NBET effective February 1, 2016.
To qualify for payment from NBET, the agreement indicates that Omotosho Genco must have fulfilled the condition of attaining a gas supply level and transportation both of which must be tendered for claims.
It means that in the case Omotosho is not able to fulfil these conditions i.e if its power purchase agreement is not active, the Genco is to be paid based on energy equals capacity number. This was expressly stated by the agreement document.
“Seller (Omotosho Genco) hereby agrees that any claim for Available Capacity payment under the PPA are conditional on the Seller providing evidence acceptable to the Buyer (NBET) confirming that it has a legally binding and enforceable Gas Supply and Aggregation Agreement and Gas Transportation Agreement, in accordance with clause 3.2.2 and 4.2.1 of the PPA," the agreement notes.
Despite the fact Omotosho did not have an active PPA, the firm continued to tender request for full payment of capacity and this went undetected until October 2017 when NBET’s Internal Audit Department called the attention of the MD to the over invoicing.
After an internal audit, documented in papers in possession of Leaks Ng, it was unravelled that Omotosho Genco has not been living up to stipulations of NERC supplementary order.
To correct the anomaly, NBET on September 22, 2016 wrote Omotosho to request for fulfilment of condition for the PPA activation agreement. The company was first given a 30-day and later 90-day window to tender necessary documents but it never did.
For instance, in June 2017, Omotosho supplied energy to the tune of 33.16 megawatts but invoiced up to 161.74 megawatts.
This implies that Omotosho laid claim to an excess of 128.58 megawatts as excess capacity for the cycle.
For this capacity, Omotosho requested for a payment of N1, 023, 532, 574 instead of N209, 824, 177, leaving an excess of N813, 708,397 for the capacity in June 2016.
Similarly, Olorunsogo Power Plc whose PPA took effect from August 2014 in the said month tendered 11.9 megawatts for energy while 197.83 as capacity. Since the PPA was not active, the capacity ought to be equal to the energy to make the firm qualify for payment as stated in the agreement.
Olorunsogo issued an invoice of N1, 251, 881, 528 for capacity for June 2016 as against N75, 363, 267 calculated by its actual energy. The difference is an over invoicing of N1, 176, 518, 261.
For both firms, the over invoicing amounts to N1, 990, 226, 658 as excess in just one month, June 2016.
Leaks NG could not lay hold to all invoices used in payment to the companies. But two of the invoices showed partial payment to both.
One of the invoices in possession of Leaks NG shows that Mrs Amobi acting as internal auditor, paid Omotosho N339, 813, 418 in October 2016. The fund is a part payment for July 2016 energy and capacity.
On the same date; October 11, 2016, NBET paid Olorunsogo N372, 498, 731 also as part payment for July.
Payment to the two companies is a breach of initial agreement and Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) order of Transitional Stage Electricity Market.
The TEM in order iv states that; “Gencos without effective PPAs shall be paid for their delivered energy and delivered capacity by NBET (Delivered capacity for the purposes of this order means the capacity equivalent of the energy delivered at Gencos busbar.”
These payment wouldn’t have been possible without Dr Amobi’s insistence.
While the Internal Audit of NBET refused to process the payment, Dr Amobi signed the July payment on 13th October 2017 assuming the role of internal audit in violation of financial regulation.
This is a breach of Section 1705 of the financial regulations which states that “the Head of Internal Audit Unit in all ministries/extra-ministerial offices and other arms of government shall ensure that 100% pre-payment audit of all checked and passed vouchers is carried out and the vouchers forwarded under security schedule direct to the appropriate Central Pay Office for payment. Checked and passed vouchers received in the internal audit Unit must be promptly dealt with and, under no circumstances shall a voucher be held in that unit for more than forty-eight (48) hours.”
ILLEGAL PAYMENT TO LAW FIRMS
Sometimes in 2014, NBET wrote the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) to request the agency sign off on power procurement and retroactive no objection in procurement.
The request simply means that NBET requests to be excluded from being subjected to BPP act in its power purchase agreement. The request was declined by BPP.
In a response dated April 29, 2014, BPP stated that NBET, like other agencies must follow due procurement process in power procurement.
BPP noted in its reply, “That if section 5 (a) of PPA was intended to exclude some sectors like the Power Sector, it would have been stated clearly. Consequently, giving NBET a one-off approval for NBET’s power procurement process would not only amount to a contravention of the Act, it would also open a floodgate of similar requests thereby engendering confusion in the system.
“It is pertinent for NBET to note that electricity (being goods) can only be procured within one of the procedures stated in part 42.4 of standard bidding documents.
“The bureau therefore strongly advises that NBET should consult the Public Procurement Regulations, manuals for complex projects and standard bidding documents for procurement of goods, as this would assist NBET in complying with extant procurement rules and regulations.”
However, the management of NBET, then under the leadership of Mr Wonodi was unsatisfied with the position of BPP. The agency sought legal advice on way forward.
On June 1 2015, NBET advertised a notice of invitation for an expression of interest to engage lawyers on such cases, more specifically on BPP’s response.
The law firm is expected to discharge such duties as, “General, corporate, commercial and administrative law, with a view to advising NBET on general commercial and contract matters, providing legal opinions as necessary, and advising on various civil law.”
According to a report by NBET’s evaluation committee, three firms; Azinge and Azinge, Chukwuka Ugwu and Associate and John Erameh submitted their bids.
The process was however truncated upon advice by Internal Audit Department of NBET.
Surprisingly, in April 2017, two years after, the Internal Audit received a request from Mrs Amobi for payment of N30 million to two firms.
Mrs Amobi wants Azinge and Azinge to be paid a contract sum of N14 million and Aelex N16 million.
The process that leads to this request is one replete with infractions and breach of public procurement law.
It is worthy of note that the procurement process was stopped in 2015 and if there would be a need for the services of law firms in 2017, the process of engagement is supposed to take a whole process according to procurement laws.
The BPP act in Section 16(1)(b) states the process of procurement; “based only on procurement plan supported by prior budgetary appropriations and no procurement proceedings shall be formalized until the procuring entity has ensured that funds are available to meet the obligations and subject to the threshold in the regulations made by the Bureau, has obtained a “Certificate of ‘No Objection’ to Contract Award” from the Bureau.”
There was no new advertisement or procurement process but Mrs Amobi presented the two firms for payment.
Surprisingly, one of the firms laying claim to payment, Aelex, was not part of the 2015 process as the firm was not captured in the evaluation report. One other, Chukwuka Ugwu and Associate was also not part of the 2015 bidding process but emerged as part of successful vendors in 2017.
Meanwhile, award of contract to two firms under the same lot is not consistent with extant public procurement law.
It is also a breach of a 2003 order by the Accountant General of the Federation. The AGF in a circular referenced SGF/PS/CIR/625/I/1, dated 16th July 2003 noted that “Mr President has directed as follows:
“a) That the approval of the Honourable Attorney General of the Federation should be obtained before External Solicitors/Advocates are hired, and legal fees agreed upon by Ministries and their Parastatals/Agencies for any service rendered; and
“b) That claims for professional fees, which are to be submitted to the HAGF for clearance and
approval, should be accompanied by the relevant Letter of Instruction and a Comprehensive
Report on the services rendered, supported by relevant copies of Processes filed (if any) on behalf of the Government.”
None of these was followed in the payment to the two law firms.
ILLEGAL PAYMENT TO NEXANT CONSULTANT
In 2016, NEXANT, a software and energy firm, engaged a former staff of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), Uzoma Achinaya, to provide advisory and analytics work for NBET.
In the arrangement, Mr Achinaya would work for NBET for a period, present a report to NEXANT and claim his payment from NEXANT.
This indeed happened but instead of NEXANT to pay the consultant, NBET’s leadership decided to pay him despite not being part of the engagement process.
It started when on January 23 2017, Mr Achinaya wrote Mrs Amobi requesting NBET pay him the sum of N7 million advance payment for the work he had done so far.
“I refer to the advisory and analytics work that l have done for NBET on the sustainable solutions to the Liquidity Challenges in the Nigerian Electricity industry.
“I appreciate the steps NBET management is taking to resolve the issues with NEXANT regarding my contract which has resulted in the delayed payment of my fees for the services rendered. However, I have some very urgent family commitments, including school fees for my children, which need immediate funding. It will be appreciated if i can be granted a payment advance in the sum of Seven Million Naira (N7, 000, 000.00}, in lieu of the money I am owed for the work already done, to enable me meet some of these commitments.
“The amount should be recovered from my payment when the issues with NEXANT are finally resolved.”
The irregularities in the request was flagged by the Internal Audit which declined payment to Mr Achinaya.
Part of the red flags was that first, the Mrs Amobi’s of N7.5 million request was above her N2.5 approval threshold and that the process of contracting was not subjected to any procurement process.
Worst still, the consultant does not have a Tax Identification Number (TIN) as stipulated by procurement law, inside sources say.
To boycott the procurement part, Mrs Amobi allegedly directed the Parastatal Tenders Board of NBET to seek consideration and approval for the requested fund.
The board submitted its report in March claiming that due process was followed in award of the consultancy contract.
The memorandum for consideration and approval indicates that the bid was opened on March 1, 2017 with a deadline of March 6.
At the end of the process, two individuals were said to have emerged out of five expressions of interest received; Joe Agah with 59.7 total weighted score and Uzoma Achinaya with 95.1.
The contract was later awarded to Mr Achinaya at the sum of N25, 850, 000.
Even at that, the board did a shabby job in cover up.
The consultant started work in 2016, requested for payment in January 2017 for his ongoing work but the NBET management instituted a post-dated procurement process to effect his payment.
ILLEGAL TRANSFER OF FINANCE-RELATED STAFF
Due to its KAMA registration status, the board of NBET has been recruiting its staff since 2012 without posting from any other agency.
In a letter in 2017, Mrs Amobi requested the Accountant-General post staff from his office to come and head the Internal Audit and Finance departments headed by two staff she presumed to be in her way.
The request was granted in June 2017. The AGF posted Mrs Hauwa Bello from the National Centre for Women Development (NCWD) to head the Internal Audit while reposting the then head, Sambo Abdullahi to Learning and Development, a newly created department.
Waziri Bintube of the Finance Department was reposted to Risk and Guarantee, also a department created by Mrs Amobi allegedly to victimise the two top staff.
The purge didn’t stop at that, it had commenced a month earlier with the posting of two people from outside agencies as treasury officers to NBET.
Mrs Ajulo Adesola from National Agency for Science and Engineering (NASENI) and Acho Onyechege from the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs.
Posting of the trio was communicated in a letter by AGF on 30 May, 2018.
Again, the action negates NBET charter foe board committees signed by then Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala in 2013. The regulation in section 2.4 (b) saddles with the Human Resource Committee of NBET the responsibility of recommending postings within the agency.
The Human Resource Committee shall ‘review and make recommendations to the Board for approval of the Company’s organisational structure and any proposed amendments.’
Although the Accountant-General reserves the authority to approve such reviews, the office does not have the power to make postings.
AMOBI, EVASIVE, ABUSIVE
Instead of responding to questions put before her, Mrs Amobi reigned abuses on Leaks NG reporter when contacted.
In the middle of the conversation replete with foul languages from the MD, she said she would not respond on any issue because they are in court, even before this reporter asked.
“If they are things about NBET that are currently in court, there is really no need…some of them are in court. I’m sure some people brought this to you.
“You’ve written a story about us before of us sending some people to America which of course didn’t happen. These are issues that are with EFCC, ICPC and even in the court,” she said.
After calling this reporter many unprintable names, Mrs Amobi ended the call in fury